Haxhiu and Kryeziu Turn to the Supreme Court, Seek Full Recount of PDK Preferential Votes

Bekim Haxhiu and Qëndrim Kryeziu, candidates for parliament from the Democratic Party of Kosovo in the June 7 elections, have filed a complaint with the Supreme Court, seeking a full recount of the votes for this party’s candidates.

The complaint was submitted after, according to Haxhiu, the recount of votes ordered by the Central Election Commission (CEC) revealed inaccuracies in the counting carried out at municipal counting centers.

“Today we submitted to the Supreme Court the complaint with the now well-known reasoning that the recount process ordered by the CEC has shown that there are inaccuracies in the counting carried out at the municipal counting centers, and this margin of error in the initial count is not small, because in this recount ordered by the CEC only 5,201 votes of the Democratic Party were counted, and in this recount there are 220 votes that were either added or deducted from the candidates’ preferential votes. Therefore, in order to have an accurate result, we ask the Supreme Court to approve our request and order the CEC to count the preferential votes for candidates and MPs of the Democratic Party, because the law also requires that the ballot-counting procedure be guided by accuracy and also provides for the possibility of a recount if inaccuracies are identified in the initial count,” he said.

Haxhiu stressed that their request concerns the recount of the votes of the Democratic Party of Kosovo.

“Beyond our suspicions, we now have a process ordered by the CEC, which is the recount of 185 boxes, or polling stations. This process ordered by the CEC has confirmed inaccuracies in the initial count and this is now a fact proven by the CEC itself, which is why we are asking for a recount of the Democratic Party’s votes, because according to CEC regulations, the votes of political entities are not counted by commissioners of that political entity, but are counted by commissioners or counters from other political entities. Now whether these were intentional or unintentional mistakes, the Constitution of Kosovo, Article 45 on electoral rights, guarantees that in addition to the right to vote, there is also the right that the accuracy of the result must be ensured and that the vote be counted exactly as the voter cast it. No one, under the Constitution and the laws of Kosovo, has the right to distort a citizen’s vote, whether it is 2, 3, 5, 6, or 500 votes — the election result must be accurate, exactly as the voter cast it in the ballot box,” Haxhiu added.

Meanwhile, Qëndrim Kryeziu said they would pursue to the end all the rights that belong to them.

“When we withdrew the documents together, we were told that the minor errors were minimal, so they said there was no need for us to complain, they told us informally, but these are not minor minimal errors, nor technical errors, because the number needed to become an MP is simply very narrow, both for my colleague and for me, with a margin of error of 589 that occurred in the CEC system. Then they said no, we only added two, but we saw it ourselves in person; they told us it was a small technical error, but that the process had to continue.

We have our rights to use to the fullest, and even regarding the final right to a recount we will file a complaint there as well and will seek every possible opportunity that is within our rights and within God’s justice for us to use to the maximum, because every vote matters, has value, and no one needs to become an MP with our votes. So we will use all the opportunities that the law grants us.

We suspect this because I myself was following the CEC’s official website on my phone and 589 were added to me, and I was told it was a technical error, while in the response to the complaint they told me only 2 votes. Whether 2 votes or 589 votes, it is called theft.

So whoever stole them should bear the burden and should learn once and for all to work without theft, without anything of the sort,” Kryeziu said.

On Monday, the Electoral Complaints and Appeals Panel (ECAP) dismissed as unfounded the complaints of Bekim Haxhiu and Qëndrim Kryeziu, parliamentary candidates from the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), who had sought a full recount of the preferential votes of the candidates of this political entity following the recount of 185 regular polling stations.